THE CHORONZON MACHINE
Video Stills (selected by Orryelle from the footage of Michael Schoell and Peter Haren) Audio samples Script extracts and Lyrics from the Ritual Opera:
SCENE 8 (Justice/Adjustment)/ 19 (Sun):
P-Chink!
JACKALS 1 & 2 carry JUSTICE and SUN Cards across the stage, crossing in the Center, where JACKAL 1 turns WHEEL to position 8.
HOLY GUARDIAN ANGEL reappears as JUSTICE -Maat- with Scales whose pans (via her hand manipulation) tilt from left to right according to the two Sphinxes' movements and counter-movements.
JACKAL 3 slowly turns a Globe (Model of the Planet Earth) as WORLD DANCER (who has slowly turned in every scene upon her axis as she even more slowly encircled the Stage/Theatre) now begins to spin faster upon her axis, in time with the Globe. Her orbit draws closer to the point where she began (next to the WHEEL).
As the Music and Vocals speed up into polarity pairing:
'Going Back, Coming Forth; Back, Forth; Coming, Going; Black, White; Day, Night; Dark, Light; Nox, Lux�' etc. the Globe is turned faster, and the WORLD DANCER turns faster with it, rotating with each paired couplet. The Back and Forth movement of the Sphinxes also speeds up until (the angles of the pulling Sphinxes is diagonal) The CHARIOT begins to spin around in anti-clockwise (Sunwise in this Southern Hemisphere) circles.
JUSTICE begins to turn around in clockwise (Moonwise) circles on the other half of the stage, so that her dance forms the axis of the dark side of the lemniscate with the SUN CHARIOT as the axis of its bright side.
Gears grind, pulleys churn, levers heave and pistons pump as the Machine winds up and up with the action.
The SPHINXES break loose and spin out in the centrifugal force, beginning to run the lemniscate around the MAAT and HORUS poles. CHORONZON (SPHINX) is babbling:
'Opposites Are Equal is the opposite of Equals are Opposite, and therefore equal to it, yet Opposites Are Not Equal is actually the opposite of Opposites are Equal, therefore opposite it and not equal to it, and therefore...'etc, etc.
(This verse, now playing/loading, is a track from the CHORONZON MACHINE CD by The HarleQuintet. (c)02 Orryelle.)
WORLD DANCER draws close to the end/beginning of hir cycle.
CROSSROADS SONG, with Word (corresponding to the Words in the Track) Placards being placed from piles they hold by JACKAL 1 and 2 on four points of the floor (orientated to the stereo/volume spacial mix of the sound-track), moving them in towards the Centre to gradually form a Cross of Placards intersecting at the central WHEEL. (The words Fire, Water, Air and Earth and corresponding words are brought in from the directions they have been cast by the MAGICIAN in Scene 1). As each word is called and placed a CREATIVE EXTRA rises from the Audience and comes onstage to stand upon their cue placard, performing some movement and/or sound to represent their Word:
'Cross current, Cross stitch, Cross roads Cross which Cross fire Cross Air Cross Earth Cross Water Cross father Cross mother Cross son Cross daughter Cross cross Cross calm Cross cut Cross balm Cross words Cross deeds Cross feelings Cross seeds Cross culture Cross race Cross pollinate Cross breeds Cross time Cross place Cross energy Cross space Cross when Cross where Cross then Cross there�'
When this mandala gets to the centre with the words,
'CROSS HERE CROSS NOW!'
the Lux and Nox FLUX into the CRUX of the CRAX
ChAOS erupts, everyone goes crazy, All PERFORMERS and CREATIVE EXTRAS cut loose into spontaneous random insanity, yelling out (reading) ingredients of food packets (with gematric chemical #s), magickal formulae, births and deaths, stocks and bonds, newpaper headlines, poetry, 2012 and hopi prophecies, etc.
CHORONZON's MACHINE REPRISE with Grinding Industrial rather than Whimsical Toybox Mechanical Sounds.
The spinning poles (JUSTICE/MAAT & SUN/HORUS) are dervish dancing on their deosil and widdershins axes furiously. JUSTICE/LAFCURSIAX tilts sways and careens insanely.
WORLD DANCER is stuck in a spinning loop just before the completion of her orbit.
With more and more layers being added to the machine noises, all the sound begins to blur into White Noise�
SUN/FOOL eventually loses control of his dervish dance, spins wildly off his axis and up to the front of the Stage gesticulating wildly and yelling, 'No! It's too much. It's All to much! There's too many different things going on! It's out of contrOL!! IT'S ALL TOO MUUUUCH!!!'
FOOL/MAGICIAN frantically begins to do a Banishing (Nema's 6-fold), removing an article of clothing with each element/direction.
